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The nomination of Ryan Bounds to serve on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was dropped by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) after it became clear that several Republicans would oppose him over racially-charged writings in his record, reports Politico. The move came after Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) flagged Bounds’s past commentary. Scott had raised concerns about Bounds on Wednesday, and spoke to the nominee by telephone. The two senators then met with Bounds. “The nominee was not able to alleviate Scott’s concerns to show how he had grown since the writings from his younger days,” said one source.

By the end of a Senate GOP lunch, a number of other Republicans pledged to sink what would have been Trump’s twenty-fourth circuit court confirmation. As an undergraduate at Stanford, Bounds, now 45, had lamented organizations on campus that “divide up by race for their feel-good ethnic hoedowns” and called for those groups to be discontinued, among other racially charged remarks, said the Alliance for Justice. Those remarks were enough to turn off all 49 Senate Democrats, even the most conservative ones up for reelection this fall. All voted to block Bounds on Wednesday. “The nominee misled the committee and because the writings were of deep concern, the individual was not qualified to serve on the bench,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR).